My Podcast

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Video Podcast for EFL students

This video podcast will be for my first students when I start doing classes. The grade of the students will be 5^th. In Chile, this is the first grade that students have English classes. There are 30 students in the classroom; their first language is Spanish. I still do not know their interests because this will be my second class with them. First of all, they need to be introduce with the language, so the content is very easy for them.

The idea for this first chapter of the series of podcast is to introduce my students with a little bit of English. Nowadays in Chile many English words are used, for that reason I think that could be interesting for them to take into account that they already know some words, they are not an empty box. I think that the students could feel a little more motivated knowing that they have some knowledge.

The language objectives for these series are to listen to some basic words in English, to write little paragraph that contains some word in the foreing language, and also to be able to produce some of these words. The language objectives for this chapter are: the students have to listen carefully the information that is given in the podcast, and also, they have to write a dialogue in pairs that uses similar words as the words that were given.

About the content objectives, these series of podcast will give the students their first words in English, so they will be able to identify and differentiate our own words with words that we have copied from other parts of the world. For this chapter, as I wrote before, the students will distinguish the words that we use in our daily life.

I know that the children will be able to understand all the things in the video podcast because it is more visual, and all the explanations are showed by pictures. Also, the topic is easy to understand, and the example that is showed is in Spanish using the words in English that the students have to notice.

The objective, as I wrote before, is that the students can feel more comfortable in classes; I think is a little bit difficult for them to start an English class without knowing anything about it. If I can introduce my classes like this, I am sure that they would feel able to speak something in English, specially because many words that we use are related to technology, and children are very interested in this kind of topic, they love playing computer games or playstation.

The strategies in this video are, to use not only English, but also their own language, connect some words with pictures, consider some words that can be interesting for them, like technology.

I hope you enjoy it!

Reflection 6

If only she knew

In the school where I was doing my practicum, I think there were very good teachers; with the teacher that I was in her class, does an excellent work with all the students from different parts of the world. While I was in the school, I was trying to observe what the teacher can improve, and I realize that this teacher doesn't relate the content that the students are learning with real situations.
According to what we have been studying, children need to learn lessons that have meaning for now. The idea is that the students not only could learn about history or just grammar, the idea is that the students can feel that they are learning for a real purpose; the school has to help them to use their knolewdge now.

I was looking for some pages that can support my answer, and I found an interesting document that talks about it.
To summarise some important things that the document says, and can explain the purposes that a task in class need to have, here is a little list:

• Coherence and unity for learners (from topic, activity and /or outcome)
• Meaning and purpose for learners
• Clear language goals
• A beginning and end
• Active involvement on the part of learners

The complete article is in this link:
http://www.um.es/glosasdidacticas/doc-es/18megias.pdf

ESL students have the need of learning language that can be useful, they need to communicate their ideas with friends, in the street, to buy something, etc. If the students feel that they are learning for real life in the school, they are going to feel motivation to assist.

Reflection 5

Websites that might help

One of the students that we have in our classroom is from Burma, but I don't really know what problem he has because I know that he understands English very well, but he doesn't want to speak. I believe that he has a problem, the teacher never force him to talk, sadly I don't know which the problem is. I would like to know more about him and why he doesn't want to speak. Today, we were helping the students to do an actitivity in groups, the idea was to present about a topic, and I asked him to talk in front of the class, and he accepted, he read, but quietly; I could notice that the teacher was very happy because he read something in front of the class. I haven't asked the teacher about his problem, so I don't really know what I can do. I feel really sad, we will finish our teacher shadowing and I feel that I still want to stay with the children, and try to do something for this student.
I was looking for some websites on internet that can help him, but I think that he really needs another kind of help, maybe he needs someone who can stay with him during the class, trying to understand the things that he wants to say, and giving him support. During the two weeks that we spent in the school I tried to do this with him, but I think it wasn't enough time.

I found some websites that can help the rest of the students in the class, some of them still have problems with pronunciation or spelling. The pages that I found are very interesting for children because there, they can find lots of games, songs, vocabulary, etc. I think that the children of my class need something different, if they use technology it could be a little more motivating for them.
Here are some good pages with resources for ESL students:

http://www.multimedia-english.com/
http://www.multimedia-english.com/htm/kids/menu.htm
http://www.manythings.org/e/pronunciation.html

And also I would like to recomend this site for the teacher, because it has a big list of games to do with ESL students, and I have read that this is a good way for them to learn the target language.
Here is the link:

http://www.eslcafe.com/idea/index.cgi?Games

Reflection 4

Response to a question about English Teaching

"Hello! What can I do in my English classes if my adolescents students don't want to cooperative to achieve a true meaningful learning and teaching process? I am worried about their acttitude because they don't like anything. I like to work as a teacher butit´s necessary a positive participation. They are not only lazy but also agressive. This problem is only this year when the students realize that they can pass without effortsbecause of the government policies about education here in Colombia. Thank you very much"
by Doris Elsa Gama

I think that the problem here is not only because the students can pass without effort, I believe that the students are not motivated, and here is when teachers have to think and plan activities that can be interesting for the students. As teachers, we have to think that adolescents are in a difficult age, for that reason the idea is to know them very well in order to create activities that can be meaningful. Students need to know what the purpose of the classes are, why they are studying something; if they feel that the things that are learning are not useful in their daily lives they will not be able to learn them.
I can recommend you a book about ESL/EFL Teaching, Principles for Succes by Freeman and Freeman that can be useful for you, the chapters V from the book is realated to what I've been explaining to you.
I also found an interesting website that can help you with some tips for teaching.
Here is the link:
Tools for Teaching

Also you can watch a movie that is related to your own situation, the name of it is "Freedom Writers" and the teacher in this movie could motivate her students, this is an awesome film.

Reflection 3

Podcasting my way to mastery of English

"A podcast is a series of audio or video digital-media files which is distributed over the Internet by syndicated download, through Web feeds, to portable media players and personal computers".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Podcast

I was looking for some podcasts that can caught my attention because I'm not good at watching videos, so I prefer listening to them, but in spite of it, I have decided to watch some podcasts of one of my favourite bands called Coldplay, as you know Gina, I'm very interested in music. The podcasts are from the official page of this band, and there is a time line in which you have to click on the year that you want to know more about them, for example, if you click on 1998 you will see a video from the very beginning of the band. I decided to choose these videos because it's very difficult for me to seat and watch TV or watch videos from internet, I really prefer listening some music or read, but obviously these podcasts caught my attention just because it is Coldplay.

Here is the link:
http://www.coldplay.com/time.php

I will watch the videos, starting from the beginning of the time line, and I will continue doing this until the end, this means until the videos that are uploaded this year. I will watch this videos only on weekends because I know that next year will be a very busy year. I will watch once, and if I don't understand something I'm going to watch them two times. ---------------------------------------------------------------------

Also, I could find a page where you can listen free audio books, since I love literature, with this page I could listen to some books while I'm on the bus travelling to Valparaiso, the place where I study. Moreover, as I don't like to stay for long time watching videos, it would be the best way for me to stay in contact with the language.

Here is the link:
http://www.podiobooks.com/index.php

I already registered myself on the page, so now I have acces to all of the books. I think that next year I'm going to travel 2 or 4 times a week, and every trip takes one hour and a half, so I will have enough time to listen to the books on the bus.

Reflection 2

A case of effective language teaching

Sarah was sitting on her desk, while the students were reading in silence and writing their predictions about the books. After the reading activity, the teacher asks for silence and she gives them some points if they don't speak while she is talking, so if they have 25 points they will be able to have a free class to do an activity that they prefer. When the students are ready to listen, Sarah starts giving some instructions about a future homework that the students have to do. After finishing, Sarah says "I'm too bored, let's do it something more interesting", and a new activity starts, Sarah put an extract of a movie about pantomime and the idea is that the students can guess what the characters are eating because in the movie, they are just simulating that they are eating something, all the children are in silence trying to watch carefully the movements of each character, and they write their guesses on their notebooks. Then, it's time to share answers, many hands are raised, and the students take turns to talk and to explain why they think that they are right on their guesses, what the clues are that gave them the answers. While the students are sharing their own aswers, Sarah gives the students that are participating actively, little pieces of papers with messages, on these papers say: "good work", "good job", "awesome", when the students recieve these messages they put their names on it; at the end of the class, I could see the purpose of these papers, the teacher makes a raffle every day with the messages that the children got during the class, if they were participating a lot, they can obtain more papers and they have more possibilities of being winners, for this class there were two winners, so they got the prize, and it was a candy. The class finished, and the students were really happy after that, they had gained new points to reach the 25, and some of them had won prizes.


I really like the classroom that the students are, the teacher told us that they decided what to put on the walls because the idea is that they feel comfortable; one of the posters that is on the wall is about an agreement that the students made, and they had to sign this agreement, this is about the behaviour that the students have to show in class. Also, one thing that I like is that they use "play do", when they finish an activity or while the teacher is reading, they create predictions with it on what they think will happen next in the book, they really enjoy playing with this. The points that they win as a group, are on the whiteboard, so they can see if they are close to obtain a free class, they really like it because in a free class they can decide what they want to do.
The class that was descripted before was really meaningful for me because it was so different from the classes that I have observed, and it was very dinamic, the teacher was always doing new things and the students were interested in all of the activities that they had to do. To give papers with messages motivate them because they know that they are doing well.
I think this is a student centered class, the teacher is always worried about the needs that the students have, and I know that the students enjoy being there because one of them said once "you're one of my favourite teacher"; also, this kind of comment motivate the teacher to continue doing well and to be more creative, so the students will be interested in every lesson.
I had always wondered which effective strategies to engage our students can we use, and to make them that enjoy the class; now I know some simple things that are meaningful and can motivate my future students.

Reflection 1

A topic in language education that I want to know more about is...

Something that I still want to know is how to involve students in reading. We already learned about think aloud, but this is only one strategy. The idea is to know different ways of getting students involved in texts.
I would like to find a new way of reading texts that could be more entertaining for them. Also, an important thing is to know other activities that we can do that are related to reading, but different from the common way.
The reason why I'm interesting in this area, is because children in the school where I'm doing teaching shadowing have to read in silence for 20 minutes every day, and today, children had to read a piece of a book, but I think that it was not so interesting because they just had to read it and answer some questions in pairs. I think that these two activities are not so motivating for them; they need to read, but a good way of doing it could be by different forms every day, not just read a certain amount of pages and answer some questions.

Here are two links that I found to improve the activities that we can do with our students in the area of reading:

http://www.everythingesl.net/inservices/wordless_books.php
http://www.teachervision.fen.com/skill-builder/problem-solving/48546.html

From these two pages on internet I could learn about different things:

• The first one is about wordless books, I really liked this strategy because it was totally new for me. The idea is that the teacher has to choose a book only with images, but the book has to be meaningful for the students. The purpose of those kinds of books is that children can create the story, they have to decide all together the names of the characters, the title, the theme, so they have to dictate to the teacher, and the teacher has to write the story. At the end, all the students have to read it. But this activity not only involve the students, but also parents, they have to participate because they have to type the text. All the details are on the website. I think that this is a very good activity to encourage students not only to read, but also be able to create a story, I believe that is more interesting for them to read something that they have created so they can feel part of it.
  

• The second website is about think aloud and read aloud, we already learned about these strategies, but I really liked this page because it shows how to do it, the things that we can say to catch the attention of the students, and how to use it in different subjects. Also this page shows that you can use this method in pair work, so the idea is that students can think out loud and share their own opinions, predictions or ideas.
  This strategy can be used not only to read, but also teachers that teach other subjects can use it as well. For example in maths to make predictions, in difficult tasks in social studies you can make the students that say what they are thinking. This strategy is very helpful and encourage your students to say aloud what things they have in mind.
  

These new strategies are very useful for me becasue they explain different ways of involving students in the process of reading. Reading is an important area of learning a new language, through reading students can learn new vocabulary, also can acquire new forms of grammar, and of course, children that are used to read are more creative and have higher IQ.

The Classroom Story

What do you see? (strategies)

Text Tour:

The strategy that the teacher uses is called "thinking-out-loud model", this means not a dialogue, the teacher expresses her/his own ideas loud, so the students start to participate in the conversation without the feeling of being under preasure. The idea is that the teacher has to encourage their students to be interested in the topic that is in the text by pointing out the things that catch the attention of the students, like pictures, big letters, and titles.

Teacher Stories:

This is another way to involve students in classes, this is a great way of teaching because children prefer a dynamic class instead of a regular class. In this model, the teacher creates the situation and uses the resources that she can find in the classroom. This teacher acts and represents the stories by using real objects and making sounds that are suitable in each story.

Wall-to-Wall Grins:

The teacher, while the students are working in pairs, circulates to answer some questions and doubts that the students can have. The idea is that the teacher can explain it, but this teacher is really special because she demonstrates all the things with realia or intends to do similar things, so that the students can understand in an easily way.

What do you think is the most effective?

I really like those strategies because this teacher presents three different ways of catch the students attention. Personally, I prefer the second one, I think that this could be more effective, children are tired of see teachers doing the same things every day, they need a change, they need to see something different every day. The idea of the second strategy is to show the story by acting and using the resources of the classroom, and also the teacher has to involve the students, so that, they can participate without feeling that they must do it, they feel free to talk, they want to express their own ideas.

Chapter 5

What are some barriers to teachers to teach English in a way that's motivating to students now?

There are different barriers that teachers have to face.

• Grammar-Based Approaches is one of these barriers because students need to know haow to use the language in real life, they do not need to some rules firts to ask for something in the street, they want to know how to express their ideas. Definitely, grammar exercises are not meaninful for them because they feel that they are not able to speak in common situations.

• Vocabulary Approaches is another barrier, to learn new vocabulary is important, but sometimes people that prepare those words to be teaching are not the words that the students commonly use. They need to know how to use these vocabulary in authentic situations, the new words that they learn have to be meaningful.

• Another barrier that teachers have to confront is the "Future-Oriented Curriculum", the curriculum is always designed for the needs that the students can have in the future, but this is not designed in order to the students can apply it in the present. New language learners can not wait, they need to know what are the most important things of the language to survive in the new country.

Teachers need to know what things motivate students in order to do classes interesting. Teachers have to prepare classes for the students in order to make the lessons useful for them, the idea is to teach through content, through the things that the students are used to see everyday.
I think that barriers can exist now, but is our responsability to find the best way of teaching our students; we have to be able to take care of the needs that the students have, and to know the most meaningful things for them.

What will you like to know about your future students?

I would like to know about the things that motivate them to do classes more interesting, so that they can learn in an easily way.
Also, I would like to know about the interest that they have in learning a new language.
And one of the most important thing for me is to know about the support that they families give to them

Corrections

This city has so many places to visit, one of the most beautiful for me was the Aquarium, I've always enjoyed documentaries about marine's life and there I could see the animals very close.

______________________________________________________

This city has so many places to visit. One of the most beautiful for me was the Aquarium. I've always enjoyed documentaries about marine life, and there I could see the animals very close.
____________________________________________________

My idea for this actitivity is not to write a big paragraph, you have to put some photos to compare your life in your country with photos about your life in the new country, the idea is to write some staments above the photographs comparing the different lifestyles. With this activity students can practice comparison and also they can do something more interesting than writing a big report.
____________________________________________________

My idea for this activity is not to write a big paragraph. You have to put some photos to compare your life in your country, and photos about your like in the new country. The idea is to write some staments above the pictures comparing the different lifestyles.

With this activity, students can practice comparison, and also they can do something more interesting that write a big a paragraph.

____________________________________________________

All students are able to do whatever they want, so as teachers is our responsability to make that students can show their potential, a quote that I took from the book says: "The most important lesson we can learn as teachers is that our students have unlimited potential and that we must show our faith in them to reach their potential" this quote sumarize my thoughts and clearly show that is all in our hands.

____________________________________________________

All students are able to do whatever they want; so as teachers is our responsability to make that students can show their potential. A quote that I took from the book says: "The most important lesson we can learn as teachers is that our students have unlimited potential and that we must show our faith in them to reach their potential", this quote sumarize my thoughts and clearly show that is all in our hands.

Gina's Activity

Hi Gina,
I found a page for you to learn Spanish. I hope you like it.
On this page you can learn about greetings first, and then you can learn more difficult things.

http://www.mansionspanish.com/cursobasico/ecurso01_1.htm

Three Principles

Teaching through content

This is an important characteristic of teaching, I think one of most important, children need to know why they are studying something and also they want to feel that the things that they are learning are useful in their lifes. For that reason, as teachers we have to be able to teach through topics that are common for the students or topics that they can see everywhere, for example we cannot do an English class to a child from Peru about the games that children play in Australia, it would be better for them if we create a class with their own games and with their own experiences.

Learning take place in social interaction
This aspect is also very important to learn a second language, you cannot learn a language by just take classes you also need to receive feedback that can be provided by other people and not only the teacher, but also the rest of the students, the creation of group work in classes is an useful technique because children take risks and try to talk in more difficult structures, when they talk something to the teacher they try to be correct so they use only the things that they know very well. Also one important aspect is that students need to be in contact with native speakers because teachers don't have the same pronunciation of the native speakers. Definitely a language has to be practice with more people to produce input and to receive output.

Faith in the learners expands student potential
High Expectations, an important concept that every teacher has to develop in order to increase the self confidence in the students. All students are able to do whatever they want, so as teachers is our responsability to make that students can show their potential, a quote that I took from the book says: "The most important lesson we can learnas teachers is that our students have unlimited potential and that we must show our faith in them to reach their potential" this quote sumarize my thoughts and clearly show that is all in aur hands.

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We have to be able to manage these three principles, we have to include them in our classes and in our teaching styles, because if we think of the importance of them we can notice that our students could learn in an easy way and we can make classes more interesting for them by using teaching through content, make them to work in groups and of course having faith on the children could help them to believe in themselves and they will do the best that they can.
All the things that we are learning here are new tools to put in practice in our country, is our responsability now to know how to obtain the most benefit of them and to find the best way to apply them with our students.

"Learning take place in social interaction"

1. “Learning English is all about deciding to join the English-speaking club.” Explain what this mean and defend the statement.
(pages 148 - 149)

It is very helpful to be part of one of this group because interaction is the most important thing to improve fluency and to gain accuracy, but not only you can learn English by doing this, you also can learn by practicing on your own in terms of writing and speaking, in order to develop the different skills. One of the things that you should consider is the level that students have in terms of English because having big gaps between the learners could produce differences in the learning process. We consider that as human being we need to get across what we think and also to share our thoughts.

Teaching language through content

The activity that I chose to change is from the book "Writing Academic English" this activity propones a list of things that you feel when you are in other country, you have to write a paragraph about cultural shock.

The students will practice not only writing as in the book says, but also they will practice speaking by sharing their own expiriences in front of the class
Thi activity is designed for students of high school in last grade.

My idea for this actitivity is not to write a big paragraph, you have to put some photos to compare your life in your country with photos about your life in the new country, the idea is to write some staments above the photographs comparing the different lifestyles. With this activity students can practice comparison and also they can do something more interesting than writing a big report.
For example, you can show a photo of your room in your country and the new room with the text that shows which is the best and saying if you miss it. Students also can share their opinions and do a presentation about their own countries.

"Gina's social and psychological distance to Spanish language, culture and speakers"

Social Distance

1. Social Dominance. Whose social group is more dominant?
The dominant group is native English speakers, Gina's first language is English and we are going to teach Spanish her but in her country.

2. Integration Pattern. How much do learners integrate, or do they do most things apart from the mainstream?

3. Enclosure. To what extent does learner's group have their own resources for interaction, such as church, publications, clubs?
Gina can interact with Sapanish speakers in classes and also in some places of the university she can find some other Spanish speakers that are from Mexico.

4. Size. How large is the group?

5. Cohesiveness. How much does the group "stick together"?

6. Cultural Congruence. How are the cultural patterns and customs of the home culture and the target culture alike or different?
The home culture and the target culture are very similar in some aspects, have similar customs, some of they are different, maybe if we talk about food and ways of living, but there are more simililarities that diffrences.

7. Attitude. What attitudes do the home and target cultural groups have toward one another?
The group where Gina is has very good and positive attitudes about the culture of the target language. There is no problem with this issue

8. Intended lenght of residence. How long does the learner intend to stay in the new country?


Psychological Distance

1. Motivation. Does the learner want to learn the new language?
Gina is too motivated, since she did classes to the Spanish speakers she wants to learn Spanish.

2. Attitude. How does the learner feel toward the target-culture group?
She feels very good in the group.

3. Culture Shock. Is the learner suffering culture shock?

Gina in spite of the fact that is not living in a country where the language is Spanish she can learn it because of her high motivation to do it. And I'm sure that she has the best teachers from Chile!

Visit to Bridgeport and Brewster

On Tuesday we went to two different places, Bridgeport and Brewster in these places we visited two schools, and we could know the reality of mexican people who come to US to improve their lifes, for that reason, in the schools there were 81% of children who talk in spanish. The first school, Bridgeport has a good level of education, one important thing is that in each class there are few students, so classes can be personalized, teachers can be closer than in Chile, they can take care of them, in Chile the reality of public schools is very different because in each class there are 45 students and is very difficult give classes to this amount of children. Another important thing is that classrooms are for each subject, so the teachers can put on it things related to the subjects, like posters, messages, etc. In the second school I would like to point out something that is really important for me, that is the work with the family, they are interesting in what is happening in the children's homes, and they also give classes to the parents, this is a big issue because is in the home where the children develop their personalities, and if the parents know how to teach them and know what their children are doing they can help them and create a good envirinment in their homes in order children can learn better. I think the work that both schools are doing is excelent, teachers I think that are very close to the children and children feel comfortable, definitely this is one of the most important thing.

. . . Seattle! . . .

I really wanted to visit Seattle, not because a personal interest but because one of my cousin's dream is to go to Seattle and we are near to this city and of course I wanted to buy something special for her and I did it!.

The first impression was that this is a big and beautiful city and then, when we went near to the sea I was so excited because I really love the sea, I was born in a port so that I was missing it. The port in Seattle is similar to Valparaiso's port and I really loved it, it was like staying at home.

This city has so many places to visit, one of the most beautiful for me was the Aquarium, I've always enjoyed documentaries about marine's life and there I could see the animals very close.

Another place that I really liked was China Town, there the food is delicious!

Unfortunatelly, the trip was too short, I think that I need more time to visit the rest of the places that couldn't see.

The technological resource that I'm going to use to do a class is Webquest in 8th grade. Students have to investigate about a musical group and show the things that they discover and also look for a karaoke on the web to sing a song in front of the classroom.

The teacher that I contacted is called Marta, and she answered the following

1.Technology, in our country, should be more important, because it can motivate the learner; they are born in a technologized world, and schools or teachers aren't prepared to supply this knowledge in the students.

2. The learner should have an active role, they should be conscious about the importance of their learnings, and the family support their learnings.

3. The teacher should be a facilitator, we have to give the tools so that they can follow the rules in an easy way.

4. I don't understand this question, may be because good teaching is related to good learning, and it is related to good students, and as you know I don't have good students, my school is not private, and they are here because they need to lunch, or a place where stay, so that they don't create problems to the state or to the society.

EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES

Language in Action: From Webquests to Virtual Realities

Robert Godwin-Jones

Virginia Comonwealth University

This text is about how to use technology in a good way to explote efficiently the resources of internet in language learning. The technologies that are used are webquest, MOOs, chatterbots snd mobile technology.

Webquests is defined as an inquiry oriented activity in which some or all of the information that learners interact with comes from resources on the internet, optionally supplemented with videoconferencing. Usually Webquests are group activities with an end goal of creating a document that collects, summarizes, and synthesizes the information gathered. They are dedicated to students, so that they can work in groups.

MOOs are chat rooms in which students can interact with other people in real time, users can talk about different topics and also use some avatars to make coneversations entertaining, also the use of chatterbots is a good tool to make that shy students can interact and talk the L2.

Mobile Technology now can conect people around the world, nowadays is easy to obtain some of this product, and schools are incentivated students to use them in school activities and they also provider their students with this technology to obtain good results in language learning.

Nowadays technology is facilitating our lives and teachers are using it in a good way, the technology that is decribed in the article is very useful, first of all, webquests allow to do classes interesting for students, classes are students center and they can also play with it, to make competition with the rest of the class.

MOOs I think are very useful, students love chatting on internet, making new friends and creating avatars, I also love this way of teaching, I believe that it is a perfect way to motivate students and to do something different for them, Chatterbots also can help, but sometimes this programs talk non-senses, so I prefer chatting with real people.

The last one is Mobile Technology, the use of mobile phones, laptops, cameras, with these devices you can make that your students create videos, get in contact with their partners and to make activities like the one that is described in the article, give some instructions to the students and they have to look for a specific site if they are on a trip, and of course they have to share this information with the group that is in the classroom.

Defitnitely, classes are changing and is our responsability to use the technology in a good way to improve our classes and to make it entertaining for children.

Podcasts

For me
On this page you can find 624 podcasts about many different topics, some of them includes a video.

For students
You can use this page with your students, this one have stories and the transcripts of everyone.


For Gina

This page contains a list of podcasts in Spanish where you can choose the topic that is interesting for you

The one that I would like to recommend you is this link that is a radio programs that talks about topics related to internet.



My idea

An idea that I would like to develop with my students in the future is that they can create some podcasts with some questions so that the other students can answer. The podcasts have to include not only voice but also a video, because for children and teenagers is more easy to understand by watching images.

CALL, CMC, Drill and Practice

Examples

CALL

Computer-assisted language learning is a form of computer-based learning which carries two important features: bidirectional learning and individualized learning. It is not a method. CALL materials are tools for learning. The focus of CALL is learning, and not teaching. CALL materials are used in teaching to facilitate the language learning process. It is a student-centered learning material, which promotes self-paced learning.

This page provides you so many exercises, but you have to create an account to access to all of this.
http://www.edufind.com/


CMC

Computer-Mediated Communication is defined broadly as any form of human interaction across two or more networked computers. While the term has traditionally referred to those communications that occur via computer-mediated formats.

forums are a good to practice and to obtain feedback
http://www.wordreference.com

It is a dictionary, but also there is a forum where you can ask to other people about your doubts, is useful because you obtain feedback.

Also you can use messenger and add people from other countries to learn the L2, the answers are inmediately and negotiation of meaning is provide.

EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES

Messaging, Gaming, Peer-to-peer Sharing:
Language Learning Strategies & Tools for the Millennial Generation
Robert Godwin-Jones
Virginia Comonwealth University

The text is about different entertaining ways of teaching a new language. Students really like using internet to chat with other people and to play online, for that reason these kinds of resources have been using by teacher to motivate students. Others technologies that are also used, are ipod, mp3, mobile phones and iphones, to share messages, to upload posts to blogs. One of the most interesting activity is to create some games on internet that can make classes interesting for children, they want to have classes different, they need to learn through things that they really want to do, because is easy for them to learn. For teaching another language there are so many strategies that we can use, also messenger is one of the most useful tool to make student's classes interesting.

This is an interesting text that define many technologies that we can use as a teachers to make classes entairtaining for our students, the technologies that are exposed are the most common for children and teenegers, like messenger, mobile phone, mp3, games, etc. For that reason I think that this is one of the best way to teach children, because they are inserted in this new world and they know how to use this technologies sometimes better than us.

Broadcast Radio

An entertaining activity to do with students

A good activity to do with student to improve their speaking skill is create a radio program with topics that they can choose , it allows to make classes more entertaining.

Labor Day

Labor Day, holiday celebrated in the United States and Canada on the first Monday in September to honor the laborer.In most other countries–and among the leftists in the United States and Canada–May Day (May 1) is celebrated instead.

W Why is Labor Day celebrated on September 1st in the US?

http://usa.usembassy.de/holidays-labor.htm

http://wilstar.com/holydays/laborday.htm

2- Main characteristics of this day (at least 4)

http://dol.gov/opa/aboutdo/laborday.htm

http://labor-day-weekend.com/labor-day-history.htm

http://wilstar.com/holydays/laborday.htm

3- When did this celebration start?

http://usinfo.pl/aboutusa/holidays/labor.htm

Language Learning & Technology

COMMENTARY: I'M ONLY TRYING TO HELP: A ROLE FOR INTERVENTIONS IN TEACHING LISTENING
Michael Rost

Listening activities are difficult to do in classes. There are different kinds of children and is a big challenge to know which activities are the best for everyone.
Three different studies are exposed on this article and they are related to ways of acquire the skill of listen.
The first one is ”Help options and multimedia listening” written by Grgurovic and Hegelheimer, which provide a study of input, task and feedback modifications. These authors promote language acquisition through the input interaction hypothesis, that is if interaction, specifically repair-motivated interaction promotes comprehension and if comprehension promotes acquisition, the integration promotes acquisition
The second article is called "Are They Watching?” Wagner provides a study of listener behavior in video-based test taking situations. The author provides a valuable survey of recent studies on the use of video to teach listening. Wagner leads up to the now axiomatic claim that multimedia experiences provide learners with richer, more authentic and more memorable encounters with the target language.
In the third article of this volume, "Using Digital Stories to Improve Listening Comprehension with Spanish Young Leaners of English", Ramirez and Alonso provide a contextualized study of young Spanish learners and a relatively innovative methodology. The study involves the use of a "project-based website" that offers graded content lessons in the form of games, songs, and stories.

The author believes that the best way to help student to listen is provide comprhensible input, one of the Krashen's hypothesis, but not only this is needed to improve listening, the input has to be relevant, motivating and teachers have to plan interventions that can make the input comprhensible. Teachers have to do some interventions to catch the motivation of the students by advancing the listener's goals for listening.


To me, develop the skill of listening is too difficult, and is our responsability as a teachers to know how to develop it in students, according to the studies that I have read, the comprehensible input hypothesis is one of the best way to catch the attention of children, we have to add new knowledge step by step because student can acquire language in an easy way.
As the author says in the article, not only is necessary to use comprhensible input, we have to be able to create motivating input and also is important to do interventions as the author proposes. Technology is one of the best resource to motivate students and to do listening activities, because there are so many pages that permit you to interact with the computer and teachers have to provide of this intervention by working conciously in this important item.

Improving teaching in Chile

This picture represents how I want to improve classes in my country, here we are learning new things that can help us to motivate students and to create classes more interesting to catch the attention of children.

I think classes have been very useful to know sites on internet and also how to use them.

The four months that I'm going to spend in US would be the best for me in acquiring new knowledge to do the best in my classes

A website to teach children


The page that I found is for children from 4 to 10 years. The page has a forum where you can interact whit other people, so that the interaction is with authentic audience. The website has many activities and games, but if you want to have access to all of them you have to create an account.
The activities are related to different topics with the contents that you need to teach.
This is a German page, so you are exposed to two different languages and in the forum there are people of other countries, so that you can interact with them.
Feedback is provided in the forum and also the grammar exercises give the correct answers if you are wrong.
This page can motivate students because it has many different activities that student can do, also has games and links of other pages to play inmediately.
Students can learn alone on this website, they are the center because activities and games are created for them.
The page integrate three skills, listening, writing and reading, the drawback is that speaking can not be practiced on this website.
The page uses different ways of giving knowledge, through draws, games, stories, poems, etc, so the concept of multimodality is applied.

The objective of the page is really clear because the activities are located according to different themes and you can choose the one that you want.
Personally, I really like this page, we as a teacher can use it to make our classes more interesting and entertaining.

A new experience

Finally, I'm here, one of my dream has been reached. Now, I can say that my course of study is going to be complete because my first motivation of staying here is to improve the L2, I really want to arrive to Chile with new knowledge and finish my course of study to give those knowledge to children that really need. Personally, I would like to know ways of teaching, specially using technologies to motivate students. I'm sure that I'm in the right place.